Sunday, February 22, 2015

I have loved writing this blog and I've really loved reading your comments and commenting back. But this is a changing time in my professional life and that change will affect my blogging life too.

I'm trying to what we now call "Re-Brand" myself. I've been known as a teacher and workshop leader for a very long time and this Publishing Sense from Alice Orr Blog was all about that identity. It was also about my previous publishing professional life as a book editor and literary agent.

Now I've finally arrived at the place where all of those previous identities were intended to take me eventually. I'm writing full time and absolutely loving it. There have been setbacks and hard knocks too but I'm loving it anyway. And - as I always admonish everyone else - I will DO IT ANYWAY!

So what I want to be known as now is a writer - specifically as a writer of Romantic Suspense fiction. I also intend to be not only a practitioner but a promoter of Independent Publishing - no longer to be referred to as self-publishing in my hearing at least. And I'm Doing That Anyway! too.

To both of those ends Book #1 of the Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series was published on February 14th. The title of that story - Matt and Kara's story - is A Wrong Way Home and it is available at my Amazon Author Page amazon.com/author/aliceorr. Book #2 in the same series is titled A Year of Summer Shadows and will launch on May 15th.

All of this is spotlighted in better detail on my new website www.aliceorrbooks.com. That is also where my new blog is located. It has its own page which I call "Alice Orr Blogs" in the interest of directness.

Alice Orr Blogs will continue to present the kind of posts you've found here at this site and other categories of posts as well. On that Alice Orr Blogs page I describe my purpose as follows.

"This blog is about us. The creative spirits we
are. I speak of my experience. And sometimes make suggestions that might enrich
your experience. Please add your suggestions too. Because this blog is also about
Sharing."This is the last time I will post here on the Publishing Sense from Alice Orr Blog. I intend to speak from that same sensibility at my new digs though from the point of view of my author self now. I hope you will visit me there. I've put up several posts already. I think they're interesting and suspect you might agree.So come on over and give Alice Orr Blogs a try. I look forward to meeting up with you again and especially to hearing your comments and replying to them too - all atwww.aliceorrbooks.com. See you there. Alice

Monday, November 3, 2014

We all know that the way to go with book promotion these
days is social media. Right?

We are also fed up to our eye bones with posts that say
basically – “Buy my book.” “Buy my book.” “Oh did I mention that you should buy
my book?”

Kristen Lamb has written a book herself that is the response
to that fed-upness and maybe the cure for it too. She reminds us that this is Social Media not Marketing Media. The book is Rise of the Machines and every
writer should read it.

Kristen tells us that the way to attract potential readers
on social media is to develop social relationships with them. In other words
post to them as people not customers. Post as your personal self not your
commercial self. Simple but brilliant. Right?

Here’s where all of this gets personal for me. I’ve just
published a book and I’d love for everybody to read it. That’s the short and I
hope the sweet of my marketing message. But what about less is more? What about
social/personal versus marketing/commercial?

This morning I sent out a single email blast with the link
to the book’s amazon page. I made a last post on Facebook and Twitter with the
same link. And I’m writing this one-time blog entry. And I promise they will be
single and last and one-time. I really do. We’ll see what happens.

In the interests of full disclosure I must add that this
book is probably a one off. I most likely won’t publish a memoir again (though never
say never). My true writing love is popular fiction. Currently Romantic
Suspense fiction. Therefore a proviso is in order.

When I publish the first title in my new romantic suspense
series early next year – I may just beat everybody over the head with “Buy my
book/Buy my book/I Beg You to Please Buy my Book” posts. We’ll see what happens
then too.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

I didn’t want anything more to do with Chapter Twenty-Nine. The
demon in my head was even suggesting I didn’t want anything more to do with the
whole damned book. So I tripped into the avoidance dance.

First I decided our bedroom had to be completely
reconfigured. This involved moving heavy furniture which meant I had to recruit
my husband to the enterprise. He had no idea he’d become party to my scheme to
avoid Chapter Twenty-Nine.

The bedroom actually did look better afterward but now I needed
another detour. It occurred to me that we should be better entertained in
there as well. [Please behave. I hear your sniggers.] I decided we couldn’t
live without Amazon Prime on the bedroom TV.

Once again I enlisted my husband as my once again unwitting
accomplice. He was much more enthusiastic about this project than he’d been
about moving furniture. Who could resist the prospect of binge watching “Boardwalk
Empire” for any entire weekend – which we then did.

Monday arrived with Chapter Twenty-Nine still lurking in my
peripheral vision. I averted my gaze but I'd begun to feel a bit ashamed.
I needed a truly justifiable diversion this time so I decided to pay the bills.
I hate paying the bills but apparently I hated Chapter Twenty-Nine more.

During the night between Monday and Tuesday I developed a
fortunate cough. Now I could tell myself I had a summer cold coming on. Grandma used to say “There’s
nothing worse than a summer cold” and Grandma never lied. I downed a couple of
pills that put my head in a fog and that took care of Tuesday.

This morning inevitably dawned and it was just as inevitably
Wednesday. Hump Day – the day I had to get over the hump of Chapter Twenty-Nine
or give up altogether. Would the previous twenty-eight chapters ever forgive me
if I chose the latter? Would I ever forgive myself?

Somebody once said that the most important writing exercise
ever is putting your butt in the chair. So I did that. I accessed Chapter
Twenty-Nine on my computer and resigned myself to the discovery that it was
still there.

Three characters were there too. The same three characters
that had been boring the inspiration out of me five days before and all the
days since. Something interesting had to happen or Chapter Twenty-Nine was DOA
for sure.

I write romantic suspense so two of the three characters are stumbling toward falling in love. Sex is always exciting but the third character is the heroine’s mother. Sex wouldn’t work this time. But maybe I could tune up the suspense side of the story. Two cops arrived with two bad attitudes.

The rest was history as they say and I am out of Chapter
Twenty-Nine at last.

I put my butt in the chair. In other words I showed up. I showed
up for my story. I showed up for my characters. Most important I showed up for
me. The writer who wants to get on to Chapter Thirty and all of the other
chapters yet to come.

Saturday, July 5, 2014

My
family and I are in shock mode right now. My granddaughter had major back
surgery several days ago and is now in a world of pain – a world we inhabit
with her in our own way.

At
first I told myself I couldn’t write. It seemed almost insensitive to do the
work that gives me satisfaction and makes me feel good. My darling girl was
struggling. How could I do anything but grieve and pray?

I always
carry a notebook with me now. A small flexible notebook from a 99 cent store that
fits in my purse or pocket. It has a black and blue cover that seems
appropriate at this time when we’re all feeling pretty bruised.

I
used to have the notebook carrying habit. Actually I carried 5”x8” cards then.
I took them everywhere and whenever I had a spare moment or two I would write. Then
came a long hiatus from writing fiction and I forgot that good habit. Now it’s
back.

So
I was sitting in the hospital swallowing the tears I felt I shouldn’t shed in
front of my already stunned family. Suddenly the black and blue notebook was in
my hands and I was scribbling away with a pen I’d picked up somewhere.

I jumped
straight into the next scene in my story. It was an emotionally fraught scene
and that suited me fine. I was pretty emotionally fraught myself at the moment.
I poured all of those feelings into that scene. Because – as I keep harping at
here – strong stories are all about strong feelings.

When
I got home later and started copying my notebook scribbles into my computer I was
pleased but not surprised to see how raw that scene had turned out to be. My character
was on her ragged edge just as I had been when I put her on the page struggling
struggling struggling.

Our
family crisis continues and I have kept on scribbling. I slip into a corner of
my granddaughter’s hospital room while nurses and techs are bustling about and
it’s best for me to be out of the way. I pull out the notebook and put my head
down and write.

The
hospital cafeteria is another writing haven. The loved ones of patients sit in
near catatonia and stare into the middle distance. The medical pros actively
avoid those stares. I eat whatever bad comfort food I’ve slapped on my tray and
I write.

I drop
onto the ground of the scene. I dig down into it. I bury myself there in these
people born of my imagination and the terrifying trouble and wrenching choices I’ve
created for them. I lose my own pain for a moment by crawling inside of their
pain.

I understand
that moments other may be coming when I won’t be able to manage the depth of
focus that scene writing requires. I already know what I’ll do then. I will
pull out the notebook and write what I am feeling myself.

I
will describe the scene. What the cafeteria smells like. How the muted
conversations strike my ear. The way the artificial air settles on my skin. The
taste of the hockey puck cheeseburger I should have known better than to buy. The
vista before me of devastated loved ones and nurses in comfortable shoes.

I will
ask myself “What am I feeling right now?” Not just in my emotions but also in
my body? Where is tension most taut? Is it in my ankles or my throat or the
inch between my eyes? What can I compare this feeling to from my past history and
from my imagination?

I will
imagine one of these strangers walking up to me and saying “How are you?” I will
hear myself blurting out the real answer to that absurd question. I will write
down what I say in all its angry/shattered/dazed-but-lucid truth.

Meanwhile
I wander in shock mode through this experience of personal torture. The kind of
experience we unfortunately have all experienced and probably will experience
again. I clutch my notebook to my pummeled heart. We are all still black and
blue.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Emotional truth is what’s really
going on in your story. The real truth of what is happening to your characters.
The surface of things – what your characters allow to be seen and heard – can be
manipulated to conceal what they are feeling. But great stories are all about
feelings revealed.

This is exactly like real life and
real life is the mother lode from which you mine your own emotional truth and
refine it into storytelling treasure. The deeply felt emotions that are the
beating heart of your story. The deeply felt emotions that make your reader
feel deeply too.

I write romantic suspense novels. Scary
things happen in my stories. The main character of the story I’m currently
writing is assaulted and strangled. That happened to me once. My character and I
both survived. Now we both benefit from my emotional truth of that awful
experience.

The powerlessness while it was
happening. The shock and numbness after it was over. The way others might have
seen me at that moment had there been anyone present to see. I didn’t need to
take notes. All of that was branded on my psyche in indelible emotional ink.

Unfortunately we have all had
similarly indelible experiences. We have been changed by them – traumatized by
them – sometimes stopped in our tracks by them. Now we get to convert them into
the very raw material of intense and dramatic and powerful storytelling.

Stephen King said "For me, there have been
times when the act of writing has been an act of faith, a spit in the eye of
despair. Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back
to life."

I say despair can be a way back to the act of writing
at its most vivid and vital center. I’m not talking about memoir writing though
digging for emotional truth is crucial there also. I’m talking about
re-imagining real-life experience into the spit in the eye that is a riveting
piece of original art.

Our emotional truth is not necessarily what we
show on the surface of ourselves. It is more true than what we show on the
surface. Our stories can be the expression of that subterranean truth brought
to the light and wrought in words. The result can be the best writing we have
ever done.

You know what these stories are for you. Write
them the way your heart feels them to be true which may differ from factual truth.
Facts are verifiable. Feelings are not. Someone else’s emotional truth may vary
from yours. That doesn’t make your truth any less valid.

Emotional Truth is individual. Your characters’ truth is what they
honestly feel. That honesty gives your story authenticity. That inner authentic
truth is what really matters. It’s what will make your story really matter – to
you as you write it and to your readers as they read it.

So dig
down and dig deep. You’ll know when you hit the mother lode because it will
zing straight to your heart – just before you zing it straight to the page.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG

This site is all about passing on a broad range of practical tips and pragmatic advice for writers who want to be published or better published.

ABOUT ALICE

I started this blog to help writers navigate the often confusing world of writing and publishing. Most writers want to create the best work they have in them and get that work published.
I have spent my professional life in writing and publishing – as a book editor, a literary agent, a workshop presenter and a published author. My mission is to share what I have learned from these experiences with as many writers as I can possibly reach.